


in the end (for eternity)

by orphan_account



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Dead Character, Ghosts, Pining, Suicide, Undead, ghost!danny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 14:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12256620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Danny's death was a shock. Seeing Danny after death? An even bigger shock. At least this time Dash can say a proper goodbye.





	in the end (for eternity)

**Author's Note:**

> So uh... Not my first DP fanfic, although it is the first I've posted. It's super rushed but???
> 
> Enjoy.

They say the room around him seems larger somehow. Dash thinks it feels empty. Lonely. Blackness stares back at him through the window across the room, a gaping mouth that almost seems to plead with him not to leave. A different wall presses against each of his shoulder blades, the harsh pressure dulled slightly by the thick blanket draped over his slouched body.

He’s there too, though, all misty and ethereal with bright green eyes and a playful smile. His legs are crossed as he sits before his living companion, a glowing light in the center of a dark room.

“What's wrong?” He asks, and all Dash can do is stare back at him. “Aren't you excited? A new house, new town, new people? Think of the fun you'll have in your new school!”

He can see through him as always. It isn't only a literal term anymore, however, as his facade is just as intangible as his body. “Stop acting like it doesn't affect you.”

His head tilts to the side in a manner not unlike a puppy. “Dash?”

“I know it's bothering you!” Dash snaps. It hurts to see him smiling when he feels like his world is falling apart around him. “Me leaving you here all alone, it's not right! Damnit, Fenton, I shouldn't be leaving you… Not after what I did to you…”

Danny Fenton, or at least a piece of what he once was, leans back as if scorned. Those wide green eyes stare at Dash with such a strong intensity that he can almost feel it freezing his insides. “Dash… You know I don't hold you responsible…”

“Bullshit.”

“No, seriously,” the ghost argues, splaying his palms out over his thighs. “I don't blame you for what happened.”

Dash glowers. “Yeah, because you don't remember any of it.”

“I don't need to. I know what happened and that's good enough for me.”

The rage pools deep within Dash’s stomach, simmering until suddenly he can't hold it anymore. “Are you fucking stupid?!” He cries, voice tinged with such outrage that Danny actually flinches. “I killed you!”

“Actually,” Danny cuts in meekly, “I killed me.”

“But it was my fault! I pushed and pushed until there was no where left for you to fall but over the fucking edge, Fenton! I saw the signs -- the depression, the weight loss and purple under your eyes, even distancing yourself from your friends! I saw the signs and I ignored them like a fucking idiot, and because of that you killed yourself!”

Danny remained silent for a long while, his head bowed and white fringe obscuring his face. Dash painfully recalled a time when that fringe was black, when it didn't glow, and when those eyes that eventually glance up at him were blue rather than shocking green. The ghost lands a hesitant stare on his human companion, fingers fiddling with the hem of his clothes.

“I… I understand that you were a... contributing factor to my death, Dash. But I'm at peace right now. Those memories are gone and I'm happy. I got to meet you,” Danny explained softly. “Not just the meathead jock you are at school, but the sweet, caring, romance movie-loving, teddy bear-collecting, embarrassingly awkward dork Dash Baxter that I doubt even Kwan has seen the full extent of. This was what I wanted when I chose this path. You have to accept that.”

Dash bit his lip. “But…”

“No buts,” Danny held up a hand. “I don't want to hear it. What's done is done.”

But you're dead.

But I'm moving.

But you'll be alone from now on.

But…

Dash sighs. “Alright… Well, no, not alright, but I mean… End of discussion.” He purses his lips, hugging the blanket just a bit tighter around his shoulders. Danny gives him a look that could either be amused or pitying depending on how he would like to interpret it. In the end, he ignores it in favor of studying the smaller ghost.

In life Danny had never exactly been normal. He was always too thin, too short, and hardly had any friends aside from a goth girl by the name of Samantha Manson and some nerdy techno-geek named Tucker Foley. The three had been joined at the hip since basically forever, and Dash couldn't remember a time the trio wasn't together.

Danny had always rubbed him the wrong way. He hadn't been able to name it at first, having been far too young and inexperienced. Then came the wet dreams and the fantasies, the surprise boners when Danny so much as walked into a room and the warmed cheeks when their eyes met for whatever reason. He'd been horrified at the realization of just what it all meant, and had promptly resorted to showing the kid just how much he disliked it. Verbal harassment, physical altercations, and even cyber bullying once the dweeb mustered up the courage to join the online world -- it hadn't lasted more than a week before all of his social media was deleted.

Years passed in much the same manner. It wasn't until Freshman year that things began to change.

The added pressure of high school had taken its toll on Danny. His already too-thin stature shrunk to an unhealthy level, his skin turning pale and sallow, and the sarcasm that once spilled from his lips like an endless waterfall fizzled out into an almost constant silence.

Two days after the end of Finals week Danny Fenton was announced dead.

No one had believed it at first. That's how it always went, right? Denial. No one wanted to believe that someone they'd known for most of their life was dead. But eventually they had to accept it. Funeral arrangements were made -- a funeral Dash never went to -- and a desk remained empty for the rest of the school year. The most unbearable part wasn't seeing that desk every day, but rather not seeing it Sophomore year. It was as if Danny Fenton had never existed in the first place, and maybe that's what fucked with Dash the most.

But then, inexplicably, he'd appeared. At first Dash was thoroughly convinced he was hallucinating. Then when that notion was thwarted he thought Danny was there to haunt him for sure. But as it turned out…

Danny didn't even remember him.

The ghost had greeted him as though it were him that lived in the house rather than Dash, a friendly smile brightening his face in a way Dash hadn't seen in years. Danny soon revealed that he remembered nothing of his life as a human, as Danny Fenton, and had been calling himself by the name Phantom for the past year since his death. Why Dash had never seen him in that year he wasn't quite sure, but ever since the first appearance Danny’s ghost had been impossible to shake.

From the time Dash set foot into his house to the time he left it was free for Danny to speak with him. Rather than being bonded to Dash himself they quickly figured out Danny was actually bonded to the house. So long as Dash never moved…

But that was it. He was moving.

They thought he was crazy, claiming he could see the ghost of the dead boy he used to bully. He didn't exactly blame them; he often questioned his sanity as well. His parents had eventually grown so concerned that they'd decided to move out of town, away from any traces of Danny Fenton, the boy he kinda sort-of indirectly killed.

And leaving the house meant leaving Danny. Dash feels tears of frustration and, dare he say it, sadness threatening to spill free.

“I don't want to leave you,” he breathes at last, and Danny slumps.

“You're still going on about that?”

“There -- there has to be a way you can come with me, I just have to-,”

“Dash.” Danny’s hands cup Dash’s face gently, pressing their foreheads together as he settles a determined stare onto his human companion. “Enough.”

Dash has to remind himself to breathe. “I… This last year with you around was like a miracle. It was a miracle. It shouldn't be possible, but… Gods, I'm so relieved. I'm so glad you came back, that we, we could spend this time together because fuck, I lo-, I…” Deep breath. “I love you, I love you so fucking much that I hate it.”

A grin pulls at Danny's mouth, his eyes crinkling in the most endearing way that Dash can't help but kiss him. It's only a small peck. A press of lips, warm and living against cold and dead. Danny blinks, a faint noise of confusion slipping from his throat, but Dash ends it before he has the chance to pull away.

He heaves himself to his feet, shaking the sleep from his numbened legs and stretching out his arms. The blanket falls to the floor. “W-well,” he croaks, “I should be going before mom has to come drag me out by my ear.” He tries for a chuckle but the sound that comes out sounds far too choked for what he was going for. He shakes it off easily enough.

“Dash-,”

“See ya around, Fenton.”

The bedroom door shuts behind him and he leans heavily against it. Danny doesn't follow him into the hallway and Dash is thankful; he doesn't know if he could handle walking away for a second time. He knows that this is it. After this he'll never see Danny again. No miracles this time, no supernatural scapegoats to swoop in and fix everything. 

His blanket remains on his bedroom floor for if Danny ever feels lonely because honestly, how could he not get lonely? There's a bouquet of flowers in the car waiting to be dropped off at the cemetery on the way out of town. Everything feels right yet so terribly painful, and in the back of his mind Dash wonders if Danny is hurting too.

He leaves the house he grew up in knowing that at least this time he's said a proper goodbye.


End file.
